Looking Beyond Money, Living Beyond Fear

The recession has dramatically
demonstrated just how interconnected we are. As the housing crisis hit
the calm waters of people's daily lives it sent waves that traveled
over the nation and quickly reached far shores around the world. Unfortunately fear about the future
is contagious. People
hold back in their spending and local economies shrink like cashmere
in the dryer.

We have given the idea of money

incredible power. Great acts of altruism are accomplished through
philanthropy
that brings hope and comfort where there had been none. But in its
darker incarnations money creates empires capable of destroying
ecosystems
and wasting the health of whole populations. Money fathered the
industry
of war.

On the individual level, lack
of enough money causes us tremendous pain. We have been indoctrinated
to believe that without the special printed paper that comes from any
nation's mint we cannot obtain the goods and services needed for a
good life. It doesn't matter if they are rupees, quetzales, pula,
yen, rand, euros or dollars, without enough in their pockets people
resign themselves to dissatisfaction, poverty and suffering.

Under the current economic
circumstances, it is more urgent than ever that we shun the limiting
beliefs we may have about our power to acquire what we need and look
beyond our wallets for other forms of currency. There
is a well of creativity that can be tapped to bring more abundance to
people and communities. This is a good time to experiment with ways
to re-invent commerce and expand our potential to acquire the things
we need and want. Here are a few ideas that have worked.

In the early '80s while living
in Durango, Colorado I made my living by practicing therapeutic
massage.
A town of ski bums, mountain bikers and climbers, people were just
getting
by from what they could earned during our winter and summer tourist
seasons. Massage for many was a luxury they could not afford.

Wanting to increase my ability
to acquire what I needed, I started offering to trade professional
massage
in exchange for goods and services. Who would not want a massage to
relieve stress or to alleviate the pains of hard mountain biking or
skiing? My trade activity grew rapidly. The owner of the local
bookstore,
an avid mountain biker, let me charge books which were paid for with
massage. A fellow called to ask if I'd like a cord of firewood
delivered
to my cabin door before the first snows. I jokingly accused my
dentist of being over zealous in finding work to do in my mouth to which

she admitted wanting more massage. People began to pay debts to
others by transferring massages to them.

This bartering grew to include
others throughout town. There was no formal structure, just agreements
between people, "I'll give you my services in exchange for your
goods, sound good?" People were able to do business without cash just
by keeping the agreements.

Eventually someone created
a register of available bartering partners, making it possible to trade
with people one did not previously know. As if to prove the success
of the movement, the organizer of the register was contacted by the
IRS with instructions to oblige barterers to pay income tax on the value

of the trade. After a bit of eye-rolling, people continued the
tax-free,
people-to-people trading.

A more formal extension of
bartering is the creation of "local currency" as a community-based
system of exchange. One of the better known experiments with local
currency has been going on since the recession of 1991 in Ithaca, New
York. "Ithaca Hours" can be used to buy goods and services
in Ithaca. The movement began when vendors at the local farmer's market
decided to accept hours for products. It soon expanded widely
to include many businesses. Eventually Ithaca Hours received serious
attention from the central bank in China that sent a high level official

to Ithaca to study it. The E.F. Schumacher Society, founded to
carry on the ideas of the visionary economist and author of Small is
Beautiful, promotes such community-based experiments.

Once you get out of the box
of thinking you need money for all business there is no limit to the
kinds of cash-free services that are possible as Alec Keefer
demonstrated
in Portland, Oregon. Alec dropped out of high school to read heady
books
in the basement of a house he and friends squatted. A true believer
in the power of permaculture to reshape societies into sustainable
systems,
listening to Alec's analysis of how to transform society's institutions
is as good as or better than talking with any futurist sociologist.

In his early twenties, Alec
founded the Anarchist Post Office in Portland, a town where biking is
a major mode of transportation. It worked like this. People dropped
off their mail at boxes in participating coffee shops, stores and
restaurants.
Volunteer mail carriers delivered letters with destinations that
happened
to be on their way as they biked around town. No postage was paid.
People
just did the favor as they did their errands.

We are fundamentally creative
beings capable of composing great symphonies and building hospitals
to save lives. These times are testing us, encouraging us to remember
the breadth of our better natures. We are being pushed to seize new
opportunities for cooperation and trust, and to make a stronger
commitment
to the common good.

If we go into that realm where
fear has to wait outside, we will encounter the courage and excitement
to try new ways to meet our needs in cooperation with others. As more
people experiment with creating innovative systems it will become clear
that the crisis has presented us with an opportunity to refashion
commerce
to better support each other and help businesses thrive where we live.
If that excitement were to become contagious, we could very well
find ourselves creating prosperity for many while at the same time
liberating
ourselves from fear. Keep the faith.